Top 4 Tips to Secure Your Garage Door from Intruders

No matter how safe your neighbourhood may seem, criminals are always looking for ways to penetrate a home. If they’re scoping out neighbourhoods for potential, a poorly secured garage door is a huge green light to attack that spot.

In the early days of automatic garage doors, doors from the same manufacturer were programmed with identical codes. This made it all too easy for criminals to drive through neighbourhoods, clicking their remotes to see if any garage doors opened for them. From there, it was incredibly straightforward to pull up and quickly steal contents out of a garage without anyone noticing.

Most criminals would prefer to attack an empty home rather than having to deal with an incensed occupant ready to defend themselves. If they think the home’s occupants are out for the hour, day, or month, they’ll look for the easiest and most discreet entrance into the building.

Garage doors produced today have been improved to eliminate their former glaring security flaw. Now it is nearly statistically impossible for an intruder to gain access by gaming your security code. Instead, they’ll either have to use either more forceful or more conniving methods.

Home security encompasses every part of your property and requires a homeowner to think strategically ahead to prevent break-ins before they start. Here are some tips to make sure you’re not letting in criminals via the garage door:

Make sure every door is locked

This may sound obvious, but many people figure that because their main garage door is locked, they can leave the door that connects their garage and house open. If a criminal gains access to your garage, then all it takes for them to get inside your home is one twist of a doorknob. It’s basic measures such as this you should take care of before taking grander measures. It’s free and effective and will deter many criminals who are truly looking for a cakewalk of a victim.

Close the door

Leave your garage door wide open and you might as well stake a sign on your lawn reading “Rob Me.” Open garage doors reveal everything: how many cars you have, whether you have power tools, bicycles or furniture, and displays entrance ways into the home. They also communicate that the homeowner is rather lackadaisical about their home security and probably hasn’t taken many measures to ensure they’re well protected.

Wide open garage doors are extremely enticing for criminals driving through neighbourhoods. They even shelter the criminals while they’re carrying out their burglary. The burglars can pull right into your garage if there’s a space available, which to the outside observer confirms that the car and it’s driver belong there. No one will raise any suspicions at a getaway car parked so callously as to be inside the very victim’s garage.

Peekaboo

Install a peephole on the door connecting your garage and your front hall that allows for wide angle viewing into your garage. Peepholes are essential for homeowners to assess visitors to their front steps, giving them the choice to decide whether to open the door for a known quantity or keeping the door closed if things feel suspicious.

If there’s an unexpected noise in your garage despite the main access door being closed, things are definitely suspicious. A wide-angle peephole lets you look at what’s going on without directly exposing yourself to the intruder.

Maintain your defences

Keep up with the mechanical maintenance of your garage door security system. Regularly change the keypad batteries and change your password. Make sure that the framework for your automatic door opener is in good shape and functional. Also, check the quality of manual locks, making sure they can’t be jigged with enough force. Check for any signs that someone has struggled with it in the past. If someone has tried to enter your home then they may be active in the neighbourhood and may come back to your home to try entry by an alternate route.

Automatic garage doors are a handy home feature, but they also leave you vulnerable to intruders if you don’t take specialized security precautions. Criminals are smart when it comes to breaking and entering, but mostly they just want an easy target. With the automation of garage doors comes their ability to be electronically bypassed, a situation that no one wants to be in. Don’t make your home one of them by overlooking your garage doors in your entire home security system.

Smart Choice Windows and Doors Systems serves the Greater Toronto Area and Concord, Ontario. We perform the weighty jobs that require the know-how of an experienced professional. We proudly employ our own crew of skilled installers, making for a consistent and accountable job well done. Call us at 416 877-8508 or visit our contact page here.